Schinckel.net

Since I now carry my Zire everywhere, I’d like to be able to keep a database of my iTunes Library, and if I get around to it, my physical books as well. Perhaps a reading list too…

I really like RSS as a technology. For the uninitiated, instead of checking a web-site to see if something is updated, or having an email account, you have an XML file that keeps the most up-to-date data in it, and this file can be downloaded (if it has changed since the last check) and the new entries can be easily displayed. I have about 55 feeds I currently subscribe to, including:

• Adelaide Airport, Australia Weather
• CSTA (Central Scorpions Touch Association)
• New Scientist
• Dilbert
• MacOSX Hints

As you can see, they vary between news sites, blogs, cartoons and weather reports. The great thing about them is that, unlike email, if you miss a couple of days, (depending on the feed length) you just skip that stuff, and go onto the newer entries. Of course, for some things email is still more appropriate. What I’d really like to see are the following:

• A feed for my bank account: a list of latest transactions. This would enable me to keep a close check on how much money I’m spending, and allow me to spot fraud fairly quickly.
• A feed for new (for instance) books at the library that I might be interested in.

The difference between the like-to feeds is the individualisation. RSS now allows for authorisation on feeds, this would allow me (and only me) to access certain feeds, while, if I am too busy (on holidays, for instance) I just miss that news. Still, I’m waiting for my libraries to actually email me when a) my books are overdue, and b) my reservations have come in. Surely b) would save them a heap of money: since they post out notices in the mail whenever a book arrives…

An interesting point I just discovered in The Hacker Crackdown: Apple used the FBI in the early 90s to find a leak or leaks - someone who stole code about QuickDraw - and effectively dealt with it internally. No charges were laid against the person who published the details, only the employees/contractors who stole the code. Compare this with the recent legal action taken by Apple against that guy from ThinkSecret, or MacRumours or wherever. Whether Apple has taken action against the original source is not obvious, but clearly action is being taken against the public ‘reporter’. Perhaps the current ease of publishing such information to a wider range of people, who can actually make use of the data is responsible. Or maybe, you’ve changed, Apple…

I’ve done a bit of work to iTunesRater, and upped the revision number to 0.2 It’s a bit more robust, but there still seems to be an intermittent bug to do with loading the artwork from the temporary file. I’m not sure if I’ve solved it or not, since it only appeared once, but I’ve put a try…end try across where I think it was, so it should just silently fail. I’ve also added a check-box to the bottom right corner which reflects and controls the ‘enabled’ flag within iTunes. So, if you find a song you really don’t like, then just un-check this box, and it won’t play again, depending on your iTunes settings. Oh, yeah, you can find it iTunes Rater 0.2.

The Wave Magazine - The Bay Area’s Best Entertainment Magazine… Ever.: http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=24184 Yay! I’ve only scored 5 of the possible 10 top dorkiest things to do - of course, most of them I don’t do anymore. Bonus points for anyone who can guess which 5 I have done at some point in my life…not that anyone reads this thing, anyway.

Boing Boing: Replica 1949 Bell Black phones for $60: Ho-hum. I bought Jaq a red phone looking very much like this about 8 years ago!

Note to self: write a contextual menu item that plays the selected song next in party shuffle, after (if necessary) importing the song into iTunes.

When multiple users are logged into MacOS X, only the lowest uid user can use the ScanGear scanner!

I’d never really come across classical philosophy until partway through my Education degree. We did a philosophy of education subject, and around the same time I happened across Stephen Jay Gould’s books. And I realised how some historical figures - most notably Freud & Aristotle have shaped our ideas of the world. And in some cases held back the progress of science by decades, or even centuries. The most obvious examples are the elements, and the planets. Aristotle pushed for the acceptance of the 4 Elements theory - Earth / Air / Fire / Water, and it took centuries for more reasonable theories to take over. Four of anything is usually pretty neat - especially if you can pair them up on axes at right angles to one another and have a continuum. And having four elements means you can associate them with your four humours. Now there’s a classical mistake that cost countless lives! The furore over planetary gravitation is another cause of concern. The most worrying thing is that there were Classical Greek scholars who decided that the Earth orbited the Sun. But not Aristotle. Think of where we might be now if we’d figured this one out 2000 years ago. Freud and his fixation on sex held back psychology decades. And his work was all based on half a dozen patients. Nothing like a small (non-random) sample size to skew results. I think I could formulate a coherent theory of mental illness related to facial hair with a dozen or less carefully chosen subjects. And now I read (and realize) we have more than 5 senses. And the whole sight-sound-touch-taste-smell gimmick is down to the big A. I mean, it’s obvious to anyone who’s had a cold that taste and smell aren’t independant. And you can ‘feel’ when you are in a changing gravitational field, like an accellerating elevator. And there are others I hadn’t even thought of. We sense when we are hungry, or need to urinate. We know where our limbs are. NewScientist had an article naming 21. But my favourite is the Circadian Rhythm. Knowing when to get up. I think mine is broken.